Will human population and economic activity exceed the Planets carrying capacity?

[steve_bank]

The carbon cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle

As northern tundra warms sequestered carbon may be put back in the atmosphere.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/climate/alaska-carbon-dioxide-co2-tundra.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/melting-tundra-releases-carbon-dioxide-quickly/

Sunlight is speeding up the conversion of Arctic soil carbon into carbon dioxide, raising the possibility that future warming could occur at a much faster pace, according to a new study.

Scientists generally agree that higher temperatures increase the likelihood of collapses of long-frozen Arctic ground, or permafrost, creating large holes in the tundra and landslides. But there has been less understanding of how long-buried carbon in the permafrost behaves when suddenly exposed to the sun's rays after such collapses, which are caused by the melting of ice-rich soils.

"We once thought that maybe permafrost soils would just kind of thaw quietly in place," said Rose Cory, an environmental sciences and engineering assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and co-author of the study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

[repoman]

The arctic ocean shelf methane hydrates will follow the tundra melting. The other methane hydrates are much deeper and are dotted around the planet. It will be many centuries before they blow. Lots of heat has to penetrate very deeply for this to happen.

Will that lead to something like the Eocene thermal maximum?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum

 

[Jokodo]

It will happen to us if and when we reach a level of population beyond the planet's carrying capacity.

I would put it slightly differently. Exceeding carrying capacity (whether in numbers alone or by combining a variety of factors) will not necessarily make 'it' happen, if by 'it' we mean a global disaster. I believe we are already exceeding carrying capacity.

If this is a justified belief, you may be able to tell us why you believe it. Otherwise, why would anyone follow you?

The 'it' that is happening is accelerated change. Iow, the planet is bearing the extra capacity, but it is creaking under the load. Hypothetically (and yes I know this isn't likely) if we were to dramatically fall well below carrying capacity today, for example if man-made C02 emissions went to zero, the planet could stabilise under a new equilibrium, with a different climate, probably involving a higher overall temperature.

I'm unclear what you're using 'carrying capacity' to mean. Words have meanings. If you want it to mean 'the level at which a species has a no impact on the environment', be explicit and say 'there are enough humans to have an impact on the environment", and we all understand what you mean and probably agree. But that would be a pretty meaningless definition. Even a single human individual, or indeed a single individual of any species, has an impact on the environment. So it doesn't become meaningless usually mean it to say that there are enough to affect the environment in a way that makes it significantly less hospitable for the species. But even that is not enough for a meaningful definition: A single, e. g. human pyromaniac can make an island uninhabitable by burning the fields just before the harvest. So in order to mean anything at all, we have to mean the number of members of a species where they'll inevitably make the environment less habitable.

Do you have any evidence that we have reached, or any reason to believe that we ever will, that level?

 

[repoman]

We are currently using fossil fuels for mining and making fertilizers (Haber Bosch process), to automate the harvesting and food processing and finally the shipping of the finished food.

The non fossil fuel produced carrying capacity is getting lower all of the time. The water table is also being drawn down, especially of the massive grainbelt aquifers.

The preindustrial carrying capacity is similar in scale to the renewable (zero fossil fuel) carrying capacity
- and related production levels. I shudder to thing of how many multiples of it we are now producing related to food and the travel and processing it undergoes.

This does not even touch on all of the concrete and rebar produced for buildings that will crack in about one hundred years from rebar oxidation.

 

[Jokodo]

To be clear, if the question is only whether we're currently putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than can be absorbed by natural processes, the answer is Yes. Ba referring to it as a problem of the planet's carrying capacity, you are, however, implying much more: That it is a necessary consequence of having more than N people and/or that it would go away if there were less than N people. On the face of it, without supplying a figure for N and an argument for why that figure is at least in the right ballpark, that's a pretty Esoterik claim.

 

[Jokodo]

The carbon cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle

As northern tundra warms sequestered carbon may be put back in the atmosphere.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/climate/alaska-carbon-dioxide-co2-tundra.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/melting-tundra-releases-carbon-dioxide-quickly/

Sunlight is speeding up the conversion of Arctic soil carbon into carbon dioxide, raising the possibility that future warming could occur at a much faster pace, according to a new study.

Scientists generally agree that higher temperatures increase the likelihood of collapses of long-frozen Arctic ground, or permafrost, creating large holes in the tundra and landslides. But there has been less understanding of how long-buried carbon in the permafrost behaves when suddenly exposed to the sun's rays after such collapses, which are caused by the melting of ice-rich soils.

"We once thought that maybe permafrost soils would just kind of thaw quietly in place," said Rose Cory, an environmental sciences and engineering assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and co-author of the study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If you think anyone in this thread denies climate change is a real threat, would you be so kind as to point us to specific statements you're (mis)interpreting in that manner? It *is* a real threat and framing it as an issue of overpopulation makes it only mir dangerous by diverting attention and resources away from effective and achievable countermeasures!

 

[repoman]

I wonder if there is a sort of reverse continuum fallacy going on here, I will try and explain. It is not going to crash tomorrow, but it won't last forever.

For the purpose of my argument below please ignore any global warming, pretend it will not happen. Of course it is happening in real life...

I think that we can all agree that the current system of consumption and ecological and resource depletion cannot last forever. If I were to ask it it could last for a million years you would laugh, same for 10,000 and probably for most of us even 1,000 years of it lasting is also ludicrous.

Ok, so what about 200 years? Who thinks it will still be chugging along then?

100 years? 50 years? 20? 10?

Even I as a pessimist think that 10 years from now it might be a touch worse, but not an obvious crisis then.

So what is the bridge to get this stable consumption (commuting distances count) and population? Is a speeding car into a concrete wall consumption/population crash inevitable? What about a soft landing?

The transition MUST happen, but when and how will it happen?

 

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

Ok, so what about 200 years? Who thinks it will still be chugging along then?

Excluding the chance of climatic catastrophes like a return of massive glaciation, super volcano eruptions, global pandemics, asteroid or comet impact, solar disturbances, gamma ray bursts, (alien invasion, zombie apocalypse). etc. we will be chugging along into the foreseeable future.

 

[steve_bank]

My energy and power text written in the 80s predicted we would be running into oil problems around 2000. It was pushed out by new exploration techniques, drilling techniques, and fracking.

At the predicted rate of energy growth in the 80s the global supply of uranium would last around 700 years. Breeder reactors could psch that out but in the long run all energy on Earth other than renewable has a limited future. One or two thousand years of nuclear power only forstalls the inevitable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

 

[ruby sparks]

... framing it as an issue of overpopulation makes it only more dangerous by diverting attention and resources away from effective and achievable countermeasures!

Well that's interesting. You are now the second person to raise that. Since I myself have never heard the argument you refer to (that overpopulation being accepted as a problem is used as an excuse not to do anything else on other fronts, a sort of false dichotomy perhaps) and I accept I may have missed this argument being made, I have to ask, who makes it? Personally, I have only ever heard of overpopulation being (validly, imo) cited as one of a number of factors. After the first person to raise this (politesse) I admit to being skeptical that it was actually happening, that what you suggest was a real danger. As far as I can recall, I honestly am not familiar with it.

If it's true, then I suppose it might explain why some here seem reluctant to see overpopulation as part of the problem. Which has puzzled me, since it is (part of the problem).

 

[Jokodo]

... framing it as an issue of overpopulation makes it only more dangerous by diverting attention and resources away from effective and achievable countermeasures!

Well that's interesting. You are now the second person to raise that. Since I myself have never heard the argument you refer to (that overpopulation being accepted as a problem is used as an excuse not to do anything else on other fronts, a sort of false dichotomy perhaps) and I accept I may have missed this argument being made, I have to ask, who makes it? Personally, I have only ever heard of overpopulation being (validly, imo) cited as one of a number of factors. After the first person to raise this (politesse) I admit to being skeptical that it was actually happening, that what you suggest was a real danger. As far as I can recall, I honestly am not familiar with it.

If it's true, then I suppose it might explain why some here seem reluctant to see overpopulation as part of the problem. Which has puzzled me, since it is (part of the problem).

In order for it to be true that overpopulation is part of the problem (or, for that matter, that is not), it has to be true that overpopulation is. Hating to repeat myself but you still haven't provided an argument for this. Or even a definition: what is, e.g. the Maximum number N of humans simultaneously living on the planet such that you wouldn't consider it overpopulated?

 

[ruby sparks]

In order for it to be true that overpopulation is part of the problem (or, for that matter, that is not), it has to be true that overpopulation is. Hating to repeat myself but you still haven't provided an argument for this. Or even a definition: what is, e.g. the Maximum number N of humans simultaneously living on the planet such that you wouldn't consider it overpopulated?

Well, away from this forum, and hypotheticals, it seems to be more accepted, by many relevant scientists, than the opposite. I could cite several articles that I have read. And have cited one already. I am, actually, as a result of reading around the subject, equally of a mind to ask you how it is not a problem, since I can't myself see a reasonable way to eliminate it (except by indulging in hypotheticals that do not represent what is happening in the real world)?

As to maximum numbers, that would, apparently, vary, because it would, it seems, depend on a number of interrelated factors such as consumption and technology. But for example, if I read the article that I posted correctly, it seems to conclude that in current circumstances, the most reasonable sustainable number estimate at present is (amazingly) 0.65 billion. Which strikes me as really, really low, but then it is the result of a meta-analysis of 69 different studies, to which all you have given me so far (by all means correct me if I am wrong) to set against is your personal skepticism.

Also, again, who is it that is making the argument that the problem is overpopulation and thus diverting attention away from other countermeasures? I am not familiar with this argument. Or, how many people are saying this? Do they have enough credibility or influence that we should counter with saying that overpopulation isn't part of the problem? Who are these people we are meant to be countering? Even if some are saying that, it does not mean that countering with 'overpopulation is not a part of the problem' is necessarily correct. If overpopulation is a part of the problem, it would only mean countering with saying that it is not the only factor and that therefore other countermeasures should also be considered. Are some (those who discount population as a factor) on a skeptical fool's errand merely to counter other skeptical fools?

 

[Jokodo]

In order for it to be true that overpopulation is part of the problem (or, for that matter, that is not), it has to be true that overpopulation is. Hating to repeat myself but you still haven't provided an argument for this. Or even a definition: what is, e.g. the Maximum number N of humans simultaneously living on the planet such that you wouldn't consider it overpopulated?

Well, away from this forum, and hypotheticals, it seems to be broadly accepted, by many relevant scientists. I could cite several articles. And have cited one already. I am, actually, as a result of reading around the subject, of a mind to ask you how it is not a problem?

As to maximum numbers, that would vary, because it would depend on a number of interrelated factors such as consumption and technology. But for example, if I read the article that I posted correctly, it seems to conclude that in current circumstances, the most reasonable sustainable number at present is (amazingly) 0.65 billion. Which strikes me as really, really low, but then it is the result of a meta-analysis of 69 studies.

Also, again, who is it that is making the argument that the problem is overpopulation and thus diverting attention away from other countermeasures? Or, how many people are saying this? Do they have enough credibility or influence that we should counter with saying that overpopulation isn't part of the problem? Who are these people we are meant to be countering?

The OP, for starters, and the biased set of answer question he offers.

 

[bilby]

In order for it to be true that overpopulation is part of the problem (or, for that matter, that is not), it has to be true that overpopulation is. Hating to repeat myself but you still haven't provided an argument for this. Or even a definition: what is, e.g. the Maximum number N of humans simultaneously living on the planet such that you wouldn't consider it overpopulated?

Well, away from this forum, and hypotheticals, it seems to be broadly accepted, by many relevant scientists. I could cite several articles. And have cited one already. I am, actually, as a result of reading around the subject, of a mind to ask you how it is not a problem?

As to maximum numbers, that would vary, because it would depend on a number of interrelated factors such as consumption and technology. But for example, if I read the article that I posted correctly, it seems to conclude that in current circumstances, the most reasonable sustainable number at present is (amazingly) 0.65 billion. Which strikes me as really, really low, but then it is the result of a meta-analysis of 69 studies.

Also, again, who is it that is making the argument that the problem is overpopulation and thus diverting attention away from other countermeasures? Or, how many people are saying this? Do they have enough credibility or influence that we should counter with saying that overpopulation isn't part of the problem? Who are these people we are meant to be countering?

So then the question becomes "Do we want to kill several billion people; and/or forcibly sterilise almost everybody, in order to get the population down to 650 million? Or do we want to make changes such as switching from fossil fuels to nuclear fission power that will allow us to get that number up to ~10 billion?"

The tag overpopulation suggests the former. But I contend that such dystopian nightmares should perhaps be our last resort, rather than our first response.

In which case, discussion of population is a red herring; And we should instead be discussing technologies that minimise environmental impact of humans such that we can sustain ten billion of us indefinitely.

650 million seems like an astonishingly low figure though, and I would question whether a larger figure would be acceptable - it strikes me that such a low target must be predicated on our having almost no impact at all on the environment; But perhaps we might tolerate some impacts - I would rather see Polar Bears go extinct than have to kill a billion humans. But perhaps that's just me.

 

[skepticalbip]

It could also be postulated that "the current overpopulation" is damned good because it is an insurance policy against human extinction in the event of a natural catastrophe. Humans are spread everywhere so there is good chance that at least some will survive to repopulate the Earth after some disastrous event.

The "correct population" generally has nothing to do with the Earth but everything to do with the wishes of the one defining it.

 

[ruby sparks]

In order for it to be true that overpopulation is part of the problem (or, for that matter, that is not), it has to be true that overpopulation is. Hating to repeat myself but you still haven't provided an argument for this. Or even a definition: what is, e.g. the Maximum number N of humans simultaneously living on the planet such that you wouldn't consider it overpopulated?

Well, away from this forum, and hypotheticals, it seems to be broadly accepted, by many relevant scientists. I could cite several articles. And have cited one already. I am, actually, as a result of reading around the subject, of a mind to ask you how it is not a problem?

As to maximum numbers, that would vary, because it would depend on a number of interrelated factors such as consumption and technology. But for example, if I read the article that I posted correctly, it seems to conclude that in current circumstances, the most reasonable sustainable number at present is (amazingly) 0.65 billion. Which strikes me as really, really low, but then it is the result of a meta-analysis of 69 studies.

Also, again, who is it that is making the argument that the problem is overpopulation and thus diverting attention away from other countermeasures? Or, how many people are saying this? Do they have enough credibility or influence that we should counter with saying that overpopulation isn't part of the problem? Who are these people we are meant to be countering?

The OP, for starters, and the biased set of answer question he offers.

I will let the OP respond to that. It did not seem to me that that was what he was saying.

Also, apologies, I've edited my post while you were replying.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope. I've read the OP again and I'm not seeing it make the argument you refer to.

ie this:

... framing it as an issue of overpopulation makes it only more dangerous by diverting attention and resources away from effective and achievable countermeasures!

In a nutshell, the OP does not say that the problem is overpopulation. He cites other factors:

Considering that carrying capacity depends on many factors, population size, rate of consumption, climate conditions, habitat loss, pollution, etc,

Try again?

 

[ruby sparks]

So then the question becomes "Do we want to kill several billion people; and/or forcibly sterilise almost everybody, in order to get the population down to 650 million? Or do we want to make changes such as switching from fossil fuels to nuclear fission power that will allow us to get that number up to ~10 billion?"

The tag overpopulation suggests the former. But I contend that such dystopian nightmares should perhaps be our last resort, rather than our first response.

In which case, discussion of population is a red herring; And we should instead be discussing technologies that minimise environmental impact of humans such that we can sustain ten billion of us indefinitely.

650 million seems like an astonishingly low figure though, and I would question whether a larger figure would be acceptable - it strikes me that such a low target must be predicated on our having almost no impact at all on the environment; But perhaps we might tolerate some impacts - I would rather see Polar Bears go extinct than have to kill a billion humans. But perhaps that's just me.

No. That is only one possible question, and it is to do with the potential remedies. That is not the same thing as making a diagnosis of the various causes.

In short, even if it were for example true that nothing or nothing much could be meaningfully done to counter overpopulation, this would not mean it isn't part of the problem.

 

[bilby]

So then the question becomes "Do we want to kill several billion people; and/or forcibly sterilise almost everybody, in order to get the population down to 650 million? Or do we want to make changes such as switching from fossil fuels to nuclear fission power that will allow us to get that number up to ~10 billion?"

The tag overpopulation suggests the former. But I contend that such dystopian nightmares should perhaps be our last resort, rather than our first response.

In which case, discussion of population is a red herring; And we should instead be discussing technologies that minimise environmental impact of humans such that we can sustain ten billion of us indefinitely.

650 million seems like an astonishingly low figure though, and I would question whether a larger figure would be acceptable - it strikes me that such a low target must be predicated on our having almost no impact at all on the environment; But perhaps we might tolerate some impacts - I would rather see Polar Bears go extinct than have to kill a billion humans. But perhaps that's just me.

No. That is only one possible question, and it is to do with the potential remedies. That is not the same thing as making a diagnosis of the various causes.

In short, even if it were for example true that nothing or nothing much could be meaningfully done to counter overpopulation, this would not mean it isn't part of the problem.

Sure, but a problem with no solution is the easiest kind of problem to deal with - You can achieve the optimum outcome by ignoring it completely.

Either we can address the problem effectively, or we should ignore it, in favour of putting our efforts into problems we can address.

So my question stands. Unless you are saying that the problem is impossible to solve, in which case you are wasting your time discussing, or even mentioning, it at all.

 

[Jokodo]

The OP, for starters, and the biased set of answer question he offers.

I will let the OP respond to that. It did not seem to me that that was what he was saying.

Also, apologies, I've edited my post while you were replying.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope. I've read the OP again and I'm not seeing it make the argument you refer to.

ie this:

... framing it as an issue of overpopulation makes it only more dangerous by diverting attention and resources away from effective and achievable countermeasures!

In a nutshell, the OP does not say that the problem is overpopulation. He cites other factors:

Considering that carrying capacity depends on many factors, population size, rate of consumption, climate conditions, habitat loss, pollution, etc,

Try again?

Did you read the question/answer options section? This is supposed to be a poll.

Our economic activity is probably sustainable.
Our population numbers and activity is not sustainable

How about something along the lines of "our current economic activity, being as it is based largely on fossil fuel, is clearly unsustainable, but the population has shit all to with it. The things we're doing wouldn't be sustainable at 100 million, and there's no reason we couldn't build a sustainable economy for 20 billion".

 

[steve_bank]

The selections reduce to:

1. Not worried at all.
2. Maybe worried a little but I'll go with current status quo. Maybe we should do some things. Don't think about it too much it is all in the future.
3. I am getting a bit worried. We should be doing more.
4. I am very worried about the future. We need immediate decisive action.

The choices are clear and unambiguous.